Taliban shows its colors again

The NT has far more in it that is PRO Jew, than against them. After all, Jesus himself was a Jew, as were His disciples. Paul was a 'Jew of the Jews'. It was the NT which became more inclusive; it spread its message to the Gentiles as well as the Jews.

Corwin said:

The NT has far more in it that is PRO Jew, than against them. After all, Jesus himself was a Jew, as were His disciples. Paul was a 'Jew of the Jews'. It was the NT which became more inclusive; it spread its message to the Gentiles as well as the Jews.

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That is your opinion.

To borrow a Codexian phrase, apparently the Taliban is a little butthurt.

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/glob...-its-attempted-murder-14-year-old-girl/58017/

The Taliban is mad because the rest of Pakistan is mad at them over the shooting. "Undoubtedly this is the worst press the TTP has ever had, there is no doubt," Rana Jawad, Islamabad bureau chief of Geo News, told The Guardian's Islamabad correspondent Jon Boone. The Taliban have been furious that justification for the attack, that the girl was being "un-Islamic," was not being placed prominently in news stories.

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The recent days, posts by dte have made up my bulk of statusupgrades on facebook.

JemyM said:

First centuries Christianity was based on Acts that ends with the Church becoming the new body of Jesus Christ and the "church" evolving it's tradition through the holy spirit. The Catholic Church still continue this concept. A summary of the ethnic cleansing going on in that time can be read here, but remember that this was pretty much a reformed roman empire expanding it's territory.

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Your list there started in 314. That's in the FOURTH century of Christianity, which is also when the Christian Church started becoming entwined with Roman government. I said the first few centuries, IE the first through 3rd centuries before the Church became significantly corrupted with the Roman government.

"Interpreting the Bible" is a protestant concept that begun as late as the 14th-15th century around Germany, thanks to the Bible being printed with the printing press. This eventually lead to the 30-year war and the concept of secularism.

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Interpreting the Bible is a concept from the first 3 centuries of the Church, or rather I should say interpreting the teachings of Christ since the Bible as we know it didn't really come into form, at least officially, until the the late 3rd century. The first two centuries involved a lot of people interpreting the various religious texts, some that ended up in the canonical Bible, many that did not. We could use up all the bandwidth of RPGWatch just listing the various view points in early Christianity.

While it could be argued that anti-judaism begun with differences regarding the roman religion, the New Testament is the foundation of a continued line of anti-judaism in the west. This is a well-known historical fact. The wikipedia article is extensive on this subject and well recommended as it go through all aspects of this history, blood-libel, ghettos, the holocaust, but also the Christians who rejected the anti-Judaic sentiments.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_antisemitism

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Anti-judiasm as you admit predates Christianity for various reasons (one of the main being that Jews had to choose between their religious believes and following Roman law). Most religions tend not to get along with each other, its just the nature of the "I'm right and you are wrong" stance of most religions. Simply because Christianity became the dominant religion of Europe, it became used to that end. Had a unified Paganism religion become dominant, it would have been the excuse used to persecute those that were different. There is nothing in the New Testament that specifically states that persecution of Jews is approved.

JemyM said:

That is your opinion.

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That is fact.

blatantninja said:

Your list there started in 314. That's in the FOURTH century of Christianity, which is also when the Christian Church started becoming entwined with Roman government. I said the first few centuries, IE the first through 3rd centuries before the Church became significantly corrupted with the Roman government.

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According to Acts and the Catholic Church, that is the real Christianity though. The "corrupted by the Roman government" is a protestant sentiment.

blatantninja said:

Interpreting the Bible is a concept from the first 3 centuries of the Church, or rather I should say interpreting the teachings of Christ since the Bible as we know it didn't really come into form, at least officially, until the the late 3rd century. The first two centuries involved a lot of people interpreting the various religious texts, some that ended up in the canonical Bible, many that did not. We could use up all the bandwidth of RPGWatch just listing the various view points in early Christianity.

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You first correct me, then you correct yourself. I would like to stick with the description I gave, that "interpreting the Bible" is a late phenomenon and it's founded on the belief that the collected book is divine which is a sentiment in some branches of protestantism, not all and not in the Catholic Church.

blatantninja said:

Anti-judiasm as you admit predates Christianity for various reasons (one of the main being that Jews had to choose between their religious believes and following Roman law). Most religions tend not to get along with each other, its just the nature of the "I'm right and you are wrong" stance of most religions. Simply because Christianity became the dominant religion of Europe, it became used to that end. Had a unified Paganism religion become dominant, it would have been the excuse used to persecute those that were different. There is nothing in the New Testament that specifically states that persecution of Jews is approved.

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The New Testament have been interpreted as such. You may claim such interpretions are wrong, but that wouldn't change history.

blatantninja said:

That is fact.

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It is a fact that it's an opinion. I do not entertain the idea that there are objective standards on right or wrong interpretions so I am only interested in how the Bible have been interpreted and the psychological reason why one interpretion is favored over another.

I am actually preparing a 1 hour lecture that I will have in December regarding racism in the Bible which I blend with modern psychology to explain why it's common for the "religion of love" (and the religion of peace) to spawn antisemitic, xenophobic and scapegoating "interpretions" and when and how the conflict and warmongering interpretions win out.

@bn : Actually the Romans were quite famous for incorporating other pagan beliefs into their own...
It was more the fact that the Jews rejected any type of polytheism that made the Romans angry than the other way around.

JemyM said:

It is a fact that it's an opinion. I do not entertain the idea that there are objective standards on right or wrong interpretions so I am only interested in how the Bible have been interpreted and the psychological reason why one interpretion is favored over another.

I am actually preparing a 1 hour lecture that I will have in December regarding racism in the Bible which I blend with modern psychology to explain why it's common for the "religion of love" (and the religion of peace) to spawn antisemitic, xenophobic and scapegoating "interpretions" and when and how the conflict and warmongering interpretions win out.

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Why am I not surprised, you've been propagating that theory of yours here for years. I could get into a 'you show me yours and I'll show you mine' argument over NT scriptures concerning Jews, but I learnt ages ago not to waste either my time or energy on you. It's exhausting climbing the stairs of your ivory tower.

Corwin said:

Why am I not surprised, you've been propagating that theory of yours here for years.

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Not really. I now study with the most recent tools available in social psychology, most of which I weren't aware of a year ago and that have changed my perspective quite a lot.

Corwin said:

I could get into a 'you show me yours and I'll show you mine' argument over NT scriptures concerning Jews, but I learnt ages ago not to waste either my time or energy on you. It's exhausting climbing the stairs of your ivory tower.

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Like I said, I do not try to "interpret" the Bible. I am only interested in how people interpret the Bible and what it causes them to do.

JemyM said:

Like I said, I do not try to "interpret" the Bible. I am only interested in how people interpret the Bible and what it causes them to do.

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Your body of posting history suggests otherwise. In fact it suggests that you came up with your conclusions a long time ago and have spent the interim worrying about supporting those conclusions. Which is fine, as its how 99% of the human race behaves. But pretending otherwise makes you seem less than genuine.

CrazyIrish said:

Your body of posting history suggests otherwise. In fact it suggests that you came up with your conclusions a long time ago and have spent the interim worrying about supporting those conclusions. Which is fine, as its how 99% of the human race behaves. But pretending otherwise makes you seem less than genuine.

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That perspective may fit your experience, but if you meet someone who have studied a subject for 7 years who claim their perception on their subject haven't changed they are lying to you. New information change perception which changes interpretions, categorizations and conclusions.

Objectively some people do harm, that haven't changed. What have changed is my interpretion about what a "group" is, how an identity is formed/changed, what provokes a conflict, what can be done about it, what groups runs a risk, the theories I use, what tools I use to test new theories and the evidence I have. But more important, my motivation have changed. I am now approaching a position in which I need to conduct proper research to earn my living so I apply all of this in areas where it matters. Christianity is very low priority there where as nationalism, sexism, racism and organized crime is high priority.

JemyM said:

According to Acts and the Catholic Church, that is the real Christianity though. The "corrupted by the Roman government" is a protestant sentiment.

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Being ignorant of history doesn't make you right. First, there are more authorities on Christianity than the Catholic Church and have been since the beginning. Second, Acts, as it was interpreted before the 4th century doesn't support that. Just because some people got in power and changed the message doesn't mean that the message always said that.

You first correct me, then you correct yourself. I would like to stick with the description I gave, that "interpreting the Bible" is a late phenomenon and it's founded on the belief that the collected book is divine which is a sentiment in some branches of protestantism, not all and not in the Catholic Church.

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I didn't correct myself, though maybe I could have said it better. Interpreting the texts of the canonical Bible predates the official list of canonical texts. Its not a new phenomenon. Interpretations of the Bible have always changed, even during the period between the 4th century and the Reformation.

The New Testament have been interpreted as such. You may claim such interpretions are wrong, but that wouldn't change history.

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Of course some people have used it to justify anti-judism. Anyone can twist any text to their own meaning. That's not the issue here. The issue is what is the basis for anti-judism. Using the New Testament to that effect is not the same as the New Testament being the basis for it.

Pladio said:

@bn : Actually the Romans were quite famous for incorporating other pagan beliefs into their own…
It was more the fact that the Jews rejected any type of polytheism that made the Romans angry than the other way around.

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That's basically what I was getting at. Roman law said you could worship how ever you chose, but you still had to honor the official (Roman Pagan) gods as well. The Jews refused to do that because it directly contradicted the tenants of their religion.

Early Christians weren't much tolerant, either.

I will never be able to prove it, but I hold the vague theory that religious intolerance I a common sign in religions which are - as I call them - "patriarchic warrior religions" in their core.

Religions which came into being within early Tribes that were trying to survive in harsh environments - and this try to survive led into a specific kind of belief-system.

Tribes might have evolved over the time so that defending their Clans, their Families and - because of the difficulties to survive - their environments as well - became a kind of necessity for them. Just in order to survive.

If you are living in an oasis within a desert - extreme example, I know - every stranger can become threat. Strangers might take over the Oasis and the tribe which had ben liing there for long would be thrown out by the usurpers.
The result would be a fear of strangers and a kind of racism as well.

Racism as a method of protecting the own tribe. - Bad and runs easily out of contriol if it is carried out in modern societies like today.

At least, it would be understandable, it it was so. I still wouldn't like it, though.

Another point I fear is that racism is fr too deep into our genes already : I have seen in TV documentations that apes (I think they were chimps) were attacking other tribes and trying to kill them all. Or throwing them out of their own territory.

Territorial behaviour and racism are in my opinion losely connected.

But the far worst I saw in this documentation was apes hunting other apes ! - Chimps or what they were (it's so long ago I saw this documentation) were literally hunting down other apes - smaller ones from other races. And they were not only killing them, they were also eating them !
Yes, they were killing them for prey, or food. Monkeys kill other monkeys.
And this is my worst fear that this could actually be the source of human racism. Hunting for food.

Pondering that, I wonder if the "modern human" was the force behind our brothers, the Neanderthalians, dying out …

Alrik Fassbauer said:

Early Christians weren't much tolerant, either.

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How so? They were largely persecuted, not persecuting.

Alrik Fassbauer said:

…
But the far worst I saw in this documentation was apes hunting other apes ! - Chimps or what they were (it's so long ago I saw this documentation) were literally hunting down other apes - smaller ones from other races. And they were not only killing them, they were also eating them !
Yes, they were killing them for prey, or food. Monkeys kill other monkeys.
And this is my worst fear that this could actually be the source of human racism. Hunting for food.
…

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I don't understand this. Why is it so shocking to you? Carnivores eat other animals. So does omnivores, that's how nature works. It's not cannibalism.

And attributing human racism to hunting for food seems very far-fetched, there are - as you mention - far more likely and simpler explanations.

BTW: Chimps (and Gorillas, Bonobos and Orangutans) are apes. The other primates are monkeys. Which is why the librarian in the Discworld series attacked anyone calling him a monkey, but accepted the term "ape".

pibbur who … something

Would it be cannibalism if a homo erectus was slaying and then eating a homo neanderthaliensis ? Or vice versa ? Modern genetics say that both races werent much connected to one another.

And this is where things get complicated : Through sheer wording. Nazis called other peoples just "animals", because animals ... can be treated so. Humans can't.
The most cynical of them perhaps even saw themselves as "animal herders" guarding the KZ's.

Alrik Fassbauer said:

Would it be cannibalism if a homo erectus was slaying and then eating a homo neanderthaliensis ? Or vice versa ? Modern genetics say that both races werent much connected to one another.

And this is where things get complicated : Through sheer wording. Nazis called other peoples just "animals", because animals … can be treated so. Humans can't.
The most cynical of them perhaps even saw themselves as "animal herders" guarding the KZ's.

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Per definition, in zoology, cannibalism is "the act of one individual of a species consuming all or part of another individual of the same species as food" (Wikipedia).

Strictly speaking, eating homo erectus would not be cannibalism, since that's another species, although I suppose most of us would find eating erectuses improper. If they were available.

As for chimps eating monkeys, they are not in the same genus, not even in the same family (but in the same order) and therefore farther apart than homo sapiens sapiens and homo erectus who after all belong to the same genus.

Eating other species in the same order is quite common. Carnivores eat other carnivores, and primates eat other primates.

pibbur